


both alike in dignity

by dazebras



Category: Macbeth - Shakespeare, Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Consensual Infidelity, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fist Fights, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, House Party, Kissing, M/M, References to Shakespeare, Romantic Comedy, Secret Crush, Secret Relationship, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8344918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dazebras/pseuds/dazebras
Summary: In order to hide his budding relationship with Juliet, Romeo ropes Mercutio into pretending to be his boyfriend.  Alongside his romantic competition, his sassy ex, and the moderately helpful Benvolio,  Romeo reconciles his cooling feelings for Juliet and his growing attraction to his best friend.  This romp through the perils of modern day high school contains references to many of Shakespeare's other works and is sure to delight the casual fan of Elizabethan Literature.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days_of_storm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days_of_storm/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy your gift, Days_of_Storm! I had a lot of fun writing this.
> 
> A note on infidelity: I explicitly state in fic that Juliet condones everything that occurs between Mercutio and Romeo as long as it is for the benefit of deceiving their peers. Romeo does not stray beyond these boundaries.

“So, I have something to tell you guys.”

“You woke up this morning and found you've grown a third nipple?” Mercutio guessed.

“Is that what that girlish scream was this morning?” Benvolio teased. “And here I just thought you saw a spider in the tub.”

“Alright, you guys have had your fun,” he allowed, sitting next to Mercutio. “Serious time now.”

Benvolio his head in his hands expectantly while Mercutio rolled his eyes. “Ooh, serious time. My favorite. Is this good serious or bad serious?”

Romeo grinned at him. “Good serious. I've started dating someone new.”

“Ha! Good for you, lover boy. Who is it this time?”

“Ah, that's the thing,” Romeo said hesitantly, but gathered himself and forged ahead. “It's Juliet Capulet.”

There was an awkward second where his two friends started to chuckle before realizing that it wasn't a joke.

“Juliet Capulet? For real? How did this even happen?”

“That might have been my fault,” Benvolio admitted. “She was at that party this weekend I suggested we take him to so he could get over Rosaline. You know you're dad's going to ground you for life, right? And that's nothing compared to what her family will do to you when they find out.”

“That's why they're not going to find out. Juliet and I agreed to keep it secret for now, while we work on a plan to reconcile our families.” Mercutio snorted at that, but Romeo chose to ignore him and bent over his plate instead.

Mercutio thumped on his back just as he took a bite, causing Romeo to nearly choke on his pizza. He hissed, “Twelve o'clock.”

Romeo looked up to see the school's resident power couple, Mac and Beth, looming over them. The two seniors been together as long as anyone at the school could remember and were never seen without the other outside of club activities, causing certain members of the student population to cutesily smush their names together. But only where they couldn't hear it. Not after what happened to Duncan in sophomore year.

Beth tossed her long hair over her shoulder with a dainty twitch of her head as she placed her lunch tray on the table next to Benvolio's, directly across from Romeo. He shared a look with his wide-eyed friend. Capital-N Not Good. These two only strayed from their usual table at the center of the room if they'd heard a tip about some truly juicy gossip and wanted to get their info directly from the source. If they were here... Well, let's just say they probably weren't here to ask Mercutio about his brother's new job.

Beth regally perched on the bench, and her great lug of a quarterback boyfriend threw himself down beside her. Benvolio steadfastly kept his shell-shocked gaze straight ahead, not watching even out of the corner of his eye as Beth tucked her skirt around her thighs. Really, Romeo could commend him: “Verona High Medal of Valor” or something like that, awarded to men brave enough to to not wet themselves next to the head cheerleader and class president but not stupid enough to check her out with her boyfriend right there.

“Hi, Beth. Mac.” Mercutio nodded perfunctorily in his direction. “What brings you two to our little corner of the universe today?”

Beth spared him a glance but otherwise kept her focus locked on Romeo. “We heard someone had gotten a new girlfriend. Just last week you were still pining after Rosaline, so we wanted to make sure we had our facts right.”

Really someone who was not him should tell them it was creepy when they talked in the plural all the time.

“I'm not dating anyone right now.”

“Romeo, Romeo. You and I both know you haven't been able to stay single for more than two weeks at a time. As soon as you're done whining about how one girl broke your heart, you're onto the next rebound. So who is it?” She grinned toothily.

“Maybe this time I just decided Rosaline needed her space and I should take sometime for me. Get to know myself or something.”

She nodded primly. “If it were anyone else I might believe it. It also might have helped if you didn't use so many hypotheticals. Now spill. Is it Anne Neville? I know she and Edward finally broke up now that he's off to college.”

“I'm not dating Anne.”

“Cordelia? Miranda? Bianca?”

“I think Miranda is dating Ferdinand now,” Benvolio added unhelpfully. At Romeo and Mercutio's glares, “What?”

“Lucetta then?” Beth pressed. “No? Romeo, if you don't tell me, I'm going to tell Beatrice all about that giant, embarrassing crush you had on her in eighth grade. You remember that love note full of bad poetry you wrote and tried rather pathetically to hide in your desk where you thought no one would find it? 'You look cool with your muscles out/I love you more than Brussels sprouts.' Really romantic stuff. I still have it. I could make copies, you know. Post them all over the school.”

He could have kicked himself. Of course she had kept that. She probably would tack up fliers too, right next to the ones for her homecoming queen campaign. The shame would kill him socially, not to mention what Juliet would think. And that wasn't even considering Beatrice's reaction. Debate team and co-ed lacrosse. There was no winning there.

“It's me,” Mercutio interjected. Everyone at the table turned to focus on him with nearly identical looks of befuddlement.

“What was that?” Beth asked sweetly.

“I said, Romeo is dating me.”

Everyone's attention volleyed to him. Years of going along with Mercutio's schemes and pranks kicked in.“Uh, y-yeah.”

Beth and Mac eyed him skeptically. Mac finally spoke, “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Mercutio huffed.

“What's so strange about it?” Romeo asked, deciding to play along for the time being. “Friends date all the time.”

“You've just never shown any interest in men before.”

“Gee, Beth. Maybe that's because it's none of your business,” Mercutio snarked.

She glared at him, but just then the first bell rang signaling the end of lunch. She stood and collected her tray, as Mac followed suit. “You're lucky I have an attendance record to uphold, but don't think we're done with this yet.”

She tossed one final dirty look over her shoulder as she left, then was gone.

“What the hell was that?” Romeo groused as the trio gathered their things.

“It's called improvising.”

“You know it's going to be all over the school by the last bell,” Benvolio pointed out. “Beth knows how to keep a secret, but if you make her mad...”

“Yeah, but did you see her face?” Mercutio crowed. “Totally worth it.”

“Glad you think so.”

Mercutio nudged his shoulder playfully. “Don't look so glum. This could be a good thing.”

“How so?”

“You were worried about how to hide your relationship with Juliet. If people think you're already dating someone, they'll turn a blind eye to the two of you.”

“That,” Romeo said thoughtfully, “might actually work.”

He ironed everything out with Juliet that afternoon to make sure he had her approval for their plan. She'd agreed that it would go a long way to keeping their own relationship a secret. As long as his and Mercutio's romantic affection was for the benefit of fooling on-lookers, she was on board.

All things considered, it wasn't too bad pretending to be Mercutio's boyfriend. Their school was pretty open after Rosa Senior had spent half of last year under the name “Ganymede,” so they didn't get too many strange looks other than the usual speculative glances awarded to new couples. Things really weren't too different apart from holding hands in public on occasion.

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Benvolio said as he caught up to them on the sidewalk leaving the school one afternoon, “remind me why you guys are planning to go to a party thrown by Paris of all people? I thought we hated that little mouth-breather.”

Romeo frowned. “Juliet's going to be there. Paris has been all over her lately, and I want to make sure he doesn't try anything. Mercutio's going because they thing we're dating, and it'd be weird for me to go to a party without my boyfriend.”

“Speak for yourself, lover-boy,” Mercutio scoffed. “I am always down for a party, no matter who's throwing it. Besides, it might be Paris' party, but it's at his uncle's lake house – as in, the mayor's lake house.” He held up his hands to frame each word as he said them, “Booze, music, and cuties. All within the lap of pastoral luxury.”

“Aren't you related to the Prince family, though?” Benvolio asked. “You haven't ever been there?”

Mercutio groaned. “Don't remind me. Seriously. And we're only like second cousins twice removed or something. The only time I went up there was for a family reunion like six years ago. After I ate too much cake and puked on Escalus's shoes, his dad wasn't too keen on inviting my side of the family back.”

 

* * *

 

The night of the party, Romeo and Mercutio piled into the backseat of Rosaline's car. The first thing he noticed was that the passenger seat was suspiciously empty.

“I thought Juliet was riding with us up to the lake house.”

Rosaline made a noncommittal noise. “She was going to, but Paris invited her up early to check out the garden or something. Pretty flimsy come-on if you ask me, but you know how Juliet is about flowers. I would have gone with to play chaperon, but I had to drive you losers.”

Romeo scowled. His girlfriend was out there in some romantic garden surrounded by roses under the setting sun with another guy. Not just another guy, but the same pompous dickweed who had been putting the moves on her ever since he'd interned at her dad's company last summer. Now he was stuck in a car with the person he used to date and the person he was pretending to date, while the person he was actually dating was hanging out with some creepazoid. This was exactly the kind of thing he had been trying to prevent.

Mercutio noticed his brooding and nudged his knee at the same time he addressed their driver, “So. Ros. How are things?”

“Pretty good. I just barely passed Mr. Iago's most recent AP Calc test, but that's more than I can say for half the class, so there's that.” She looked up to catch their eyes in the rear-view mirror and noticed their knees still touching. “You know, I think it's really great you two got together. You make a cute couple.”

Romeo struggled to hide his confusion. He had thought Juliet would have told her best friend about their secret relationship, but it seemed that wasn't the case.

“Thanks, Ros.” Mercutio slung an arm over Romeo's shoulder, and Romeo shot him a small smile of gratitude for the save.

Until, that is, she continued wickedly, “I bet I could tell you all kinds of stories of how he is in bed.”

Mercutio released him and flung himself into the space between the two front seats, only the seat belt across his waist keeping him from winding up in Rosaline's lap. “Oh, my god. Please do.”

Romeo groaned. “Can you guys not? This isn't the time for you to be an asshole.”

“Babe,” Mercutio said, patting his cheek slightly harder than strictly necessary, “It's always the right time to be an asshole.”

 

* * *

 

When they got to the party, the three went their separate ways. Rosaline promptly ditched them at the front door to find her friends, and after a promise to meet up later, Mercutio left to find the beer. Romeo made it his first priority to locate Juliet. Weaving through the crowd, he finally found her exiting the restroom.

“You wanna go outside?” he suggested. They couldn't exactly socialize where they could be seen, especially not where they had the chance to run into Paris, who would surely tell Mr. Capulet.

She agreed, and they made their way to a secluded spot a little way from the house.

“Sorry I wasn't there for the drive up,” she said as soon as they were alone. “I knew we wouldn't get here until after dark, and Mayor Prince has some amazing varieties of roses that I was dying to get a look at. Did you have a good ride?”

“It was fine. Rosaline doesn't seem to know about us, though. Why didn't you tell her?”

“Well, I mean, you two just broke up,” she explained awkwardly.

“I understand. You didn't want to hurt her feelings by dating her ex and violating 'girl code.'”

Juliet laughed and shook her head. “No, silly. Ros doesn't care about stuff like that. Besides, she's the one that broke up with you. I meant that she doesn't have very many good things to say about you right now, and I didn't want to hear her to constantly complain about how it was a huge mistake to date you.”

“Oh.”

She grinned and kissed him on the cheek. “Don't feel bad about it. She'll come around eventually, and I'll tell her then.”

Romeo lost track of how long they spent out there conversing between gentle kisses. He was in the middle of pressing his lips to the soft skin beneath her ear when he heard a bellow from the house.

“Juliet!”

Romeo broke away from her and scurried out from behind the tree in a panic. Too late he realized he should have stayed hidden. Her college-aged cousin Tybalt marched down the lawn in search of her, a crowd of curious party-goers following at a distance. Romeo spotted Mercutio hovering among them.

“Juliet!”

“What are you doing here, Tybalt?” she asked, stepping into view and planting her hands on her hips haughtily.

“Paris called. He said he saw that Montague punk hassling you.” He turned to side eye Romeo with undisguised malice.

Of course the little coward had called in the big guns instead of confronting Romeo himself.

“Romeo wasn't 'hassling' me. We were just talking. People do that at parties.”

“I don't particularly care,” he ground out, “whether you think he was bothering you or not. You lied to your mom and dad about where you were. If you don't want them to find out you're not really at Rosaline's studying for Mr. Prospero's physics test, you're coming home with me right now.”

He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her along after him. As her face twisted in discomfort, Romeo couldn't help but step in.

He hurried to place himself in Tybalt's path. Chest to chest they stared at each other for a moment, sizing the other up. Romeo felt Mercutio come and take the place behind his shoulder.

“Move, Montague.”

“No,” Romeo said firmly. “You can't make her go if she doesn't want to.”

“You're a good-for-nothing Montague who doesn't deserve to look at the ground she walks on. I have no idea what the hell you think you're doing hanging around her, but from now on you're going to keep your distance like you should have from the start. Understand? If you don't shove off, I'm going to rearrange that pretty face of yours.”

Romeo opened his mouth to retort, but before he could say a word, Mercutio pushed him aside and took a swing at Tybalt. He twisted at the last second, catching the sucker punch on his shoulder. He deflected Mercutio's second swing easily with the grace of someone used unarmed combat. Second Dan black belt, Romeo remembered.

“You don't get to talk to him that way, you fucking asswipe!”

Despite the ferocity of his words, Mercutio didn't seem to be making much headway with his fists. Tybalt dodged or brushed off his attacks, dancing just out of his reach. He waited until Mercutio lowered his guard just a smidgen and swung once.

Mercutio dropped to the ground at once, automatically clutching at his eye. “Fuuuuck.”

A rage washed over him at his friend's groan of pain, and Romeo forgot the stupidity of engaging Tybalt in a fight. In this moment he ceased to care about the certainty of getting his ass handed to him and Juliet's disapproval. There was only the clarity of fury.

Romeo leapt at his opponent, wrapping his arms around his waist and propelling them both to the ground. They grappled for dominance, but Romeo managed to keep his position on top. He knocked aside Tybalt's hands as they scrabbled for purchase on his jaw and shoulders. From there, Romeo was in the perfect place to land a hit, and he stuck Tybalt once, twice across the jaw, the second time hearing a definitive crack. He grabbed Tybalt by the hair and ground his face into the dirt just as he felt two pairs of hands clutching at his shoulders.

Juliet and Paris hauled him off of Tybalt's prone form. Romeo snarled at Paris, and it was all he could do to keep from tossing Juliet aside and having a go at him too.

He didn't need to worry. She quickly released him and hurried to her cousin's side to tug him upright. After examining him briefly, she declared, “We're going to need take you to the hospital. It looks like your jaw might be broken.”

Paris kept a warning hand on Romeo's shoulder, despite his attempts to shrug it off. “Can you drive there or do you want me to call an ambulance?”

“No ambulance. I can take him. I'll call you tomorrow.”

“Wait,” Paris said, standing. “Let me help the two of you get to the car.”

He left Romeo to help Juliet haul Tybalt to his feet and to the car. With him no longer keeping him in place, Romeo scrambled to kneel by Mercutio. He struggled to peel back his friend's hand from the injury and was relieved to see that it was nothing more than a black eye. Some tenderness and bruising was to be expected but nothing that couldn't be fixed with aspirin and an ice pack.

“Are you going to kiss it better?”

Romeo looked up to see one of Beth's cheerleader friends staring at him expectantly from the crowd that still circled them. Two girls with nearly identical ponytails huddled on either side of her.

“Well?” the one on the right asked.

“A good boyfriend would,” the one left said with a feral grin. She turned to the girl in the center, “Don't you think?”

“Don't you think?” the girl in center asked her companion on the right.

“Don't you think?” she asked him.

Jesus Christ, who needed bullies when you had these three?

“Romeo,” Mercutio said, drawing his attention back to him. “It's okay.”

It was not okay. It was not okay at all. But they were all watching, waiting for him to prove their relationship. He found himself leaning forward and pressing his lips to Mercutio's.

It was like the floor dropped out from under him. His blood sang, and the hairs on the back of his arms stood up. Just a simple brush of their mouths and he was utterly gone. Romeo pressed back, chasing the feel of him until Mercutio pushed him back.

“I've gotta find some ice for my face, “ he rasped and scrambled to his feet, making a get away to what Romeo assumed was the kitchen before he could offer assistance.

Paris found him loitering by the back door as the crowd finally dispersed. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and sized Romeo up before he spoke, “I'm not going to call the police. I don't want to ruin the evening for the other guests, and my family wouldn't be happy with the scandal. Tonight's between you and the Capulets.”

When Romeo just nodded silently, he continued, “You and Mercutio can still stay here tonight as planned. Rosline's too drunk to drive you home, and it would cost you an arm and a leg to get a cab out here.”

“Thanks.” He may hate the guy's guts, but his dad raised him to be polite.

That resolved, Paris wandered off to talk to his other guests.

The plan had been that after everyone had gone to sleep or passed out from drinking, he and Juliet would sneak out for some alone time. He'd been hoping to go a little further tonight than necking under a tree. Since that clearly wasn't going to happen, he decided to turn in.

Mercutio was already in the room they'd been given, curled up in bed. Romeo stretched out beside him, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't get to sleep. At first, worry over his standing with Juliet plagued him, but soon his thoughts turned to the boy sleeping beside him. That kiss had been straight out of the movies, and Romeo swore he could still feel his toes tingle. What would it be like to reach out in the darkness? To lay a hand on Mercutio's smooth shoulder and turn his friend towards him? To cover him with his body and kiss him again? And again? To kiss him all over?

Romeo let out a strangled gasp at the affect that thought had on his body. He threw off the covers and climbed out of bed. Clearly he wasn't getting much sleep that night.

 

* * *

 

Mercutio hardly talked to him on the drive back. His friend stared out the window with uncharacteristic sullenness. Romeo waited until Rosaline had dropped them back in Mercutio's driveway.

“Everything okay?” With any luck, Mercutio hadn't noticed how deeply last night's kiss had affected him and was just in a sore mood because of his even sorer face. Unfortunately, Romeo didn't feel very lucky that morning.

“No,” Mercutio growled as he stomped up the front steps, Romeo trailing behind him. “Everything is not okay.”

“Do you,” he began tentatively, “want to talk about it?”

Mercutio whirled on him, surprising him into stepping backwards and nearly twisting his ankle. “No! I do not want to talk about it. And I don't want to hear about how I screwed things up with your precious Juliet.”

“I never said anything about blaming you for any of that.”

“Yeah, but you were thinking about it all last night, weren't you?” When Romeo was too flabbergasted to respond, Mercutio took the embarrassed flush that arose as he recalled what he had been thinking of as proof. “That's all you care about anyway. It's always 'Juliet this' and 'Juliet that.' Does anything else even enter that thick skull of yours?”

“What are you talking about?”

“She's a Capulet, Romeo! I don't know why you can't see that! She's a Capulet. A rude, pompous, stick-up-her-ass, judgmental Capulet. You might think she seems different now, but they're all the same. One of these days, she's going to rip out your heart and stomp on it, and she's going to laugh.”

“That is uncalled for. I don't know what the hell your problem is, but I'm not going to stand here and listen to you talk about her that way!”

“Then fucking go!” With that, Mercutio went inside and slammed the front door shut in Romeo's face.

 

* * *

 

Several days later, he found a note from Juliet tucked into his locker asking him to slip out of his study hall meet her behind the library during her lunch hour. After only being able to apologize over text message, he was eager to iron out some of the awkwardness that had spawned as a result of his confrontation with her cousin.

When he arrived, she was already waiting for him. She stepped back as he approached her, so he took a seat on the low wall separating the sidewalk from the grassy area leading to the athletic fields. It was probably a good idea to keep their distance in public, even though this area was fairly remote.

“What's up?”

Juliet adjusted her satchel, holding it a little closer to her body, and seemed to be interested in looking anywhere but at him. “Look, Romeo, I really hate to do this, but I think we need to break up.”

“What?” A thought occurred to him, “Does this have anything to do with Paris?”

“Huh? No, definitely not,” she said with a grimace. “It's just, I was talking to Tybalt about it last night--”

“That's why we agreed to not tell our families! Because they'd try to tear us apart!”

She sighed. “It doesn't have anything to do with my family's opinion of you.”

“Then what did I do wrong?” He'd tried to apologize for making a scene at the party, which was the only thing he could think of that had changed.

“Nothing. These past two weeks have been great, and I still really like you...”

“But?”

“But you're a lot older than me.” She held up her hand to stop his protest that four years wasn't really all that much of a difference. “I thought it would be fun to date a senior, but you're going to go off to college soon. I don't want to hold you back; college is supposed to be fun, and you won't be able to enjoy yourself if you're waiting on a girlfriend stuck back in high school. I just thought it was best if we ended things now, before we grew too attached. I didn't want to wind up like that Anne girl in Lit class.”

“So that's it then?”

She smiled a little sadly. “Who knows? Maybe if things are meant to be, we'll hook up again someday far on down the road.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

She turned to go after that, leaving him bereft. Another relationship down the drain. Yet, somewhere in the pit of his stomach, he couldn't help but feel a swirl of guilt at the fact that his first reaction after surprise had been... relief.

Now that he was single, he didn't have to feel bad about the recent thoughts he'd been having about his best friend. At least, not because of any tinge of infidelity. Juliet had even saved him the task of breaking things off with her. He was free now to pursue things with Mercutio if he wanted.

And that was the question of the year, wasn't it? Did he want to date Mercutio?

He'd never thought about him that way before this business with the pretend dating. But now that he'd been forced to see him in that light, he couldn't help but consider it. Mercutio was passionate, to be sure. If he turned that focus and energy toward someone he cared about, it had the potential to be overwhelming in its intensity, the sort of all-encompassing, soul-deep love that Romeo dreamed about.

They'd been friends for years, though; and Romeo didn't know if he was willing to risk ruining that if Mercutio didn't feel the same way. Even if being with Mercutio for real was anything like the heady thrill of excitement Romeo had gotten from their singular kiss, he wasn't ready take that leap without thorough consideration.

 

* * *

 

Benvolio entered his room without knocking and plopped his book bag down in the corner near Romeo's desk. He stared for a moment at his cousin stretched out on the bed staring at the ceiling before crossing to close the door again. He planted his hands on his hips and waited for a response. When he received none, he sat gingerly on the end of the bed near Romeo's feet.

“Alright. You've been brooding for the last two days. What's wrong?”

There wasn't any getting out of a Benvolio Therapy Session (TM) once he'd started. Romeo relented, “Juliet broke up with me.”

Benvolio's expression melted from one of determination to sympathy. “I'm sorry. I know you really liked her.”

Romeo shrugged noncommittally. “In retrospect it's probably for the best.”

“Okay, now that doesn't sound like you. Normally you're already planning ways to win a girl back. Is there something else going on?”

Romeo sat up cross-legged facing Benvolio. He forced himself to answer, “Yeah. Lately I've been thinking about Mercutio.”

“Oh, you mean this is about that fight you guys had. He told me about it.”

“Kind of. I still don't really understand what that was all about. That's not it either, though. Ever since we kissed in front of those cheerleaders, I've wondered what it would be like to do it for real. I think... I think I might have fallen for him.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “He's my best friend. I don't want to screw things up by throwing myself at him when he probably doesn't feel the same way. And he's pretty mad at me anyway.”

“Dude. Mercutio has had a crush on you since we were like twelve.”

“Wait. What?” That couldn't be right. Mercutio surely would have said something. He wasn't usually one to hide his feelings. And he'd spent the entirety of their adolescence making fun of Romeo for his “puke-worthy romanticism.” Surely someone who had held feelings for a single person for half a decade wouldn't scorn the idea of the type of true love Romeo ached to find. Unless... Unless he was trying to discourage Romeo from pursuing other people because he was jealous? Was that even possible? “Did he tell you that?”

Benvolio shrugged. “Well, yeah. That time we played Truth-or-Dare at Camp Arden while you were in the first aid tent with food poisoning. Remember, Mercutio made me kiss Audrey?”

Romeo shoved his friend's shoulder. “Why the hell didn't you tell me sooner?”

“Romeo,” he said with all the solemnity he could muster, “I pinky promised.”

 

* * *

 

 

Now that he knew the truth of Mercutio's feelings, the only thing left to do was to confront him about it. Unfortunately, he had no idea how a person was supposed to go about romancing their best friend of ten plus years. His normal game plan involving love notes and gifts chocolate or flowers would just cause Mercutio to laugh at him. Any sort of pick up lines would read as a joke. A subtle offer to go to dinner looked like a friendly invitation to hang out. All of this boiled down to one horrifying conclusion: he would have to man up and force Mercutio to have a serious conversation with him.

His course of action laid out before him, Romeo got to work. With Mercutio still mad at him, he'd have to set up some excuse to get him alone. An invitation to Mario Kart and a conveniently absent Benvolio who “had a surprise paper to research for” would do the trick. The only thing left to was find something to wear. He wanted something that made him look good but didn't scream “trying too hard.” Finally he decided on dark-wash jeans and an almost indecently tight gray v-neck t-shirt that, as Mercutio had once teased, showed off his biceps. He had just finished tugging it over his head and straightening his hair when he heard Mercutio's.

“Door's open!” he hollered as he took the stairs down to the living space two at a time.

He met Mercutio in the game room and found his friend sprawled in his usual corner of the couch.

“Yo. Benvolio still up in his room?”

“He couldn't make it. Mr. Lear assigned his class a psych paper last minute.” He perched on the arm of the easy chair across from him. “I had something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Mercutio sat forward and dangled his hands between his knees, playing with a stray string on the upholstery on the underside of his cushion. “If it's about those things I said about Juliet, I'm sorry. I was out of line.”

“It's not. About that. It was kind of out of line. Really, I wanted to ask you a question.” God, he could feel his heartbeat pulse in his ears. He wanted to pace but worried if he started he'd wind up fleeing the room. He settled for jittering his knee up and down.

Mercutio shrugged one shoulder. “Okay, shoot.”

“Ever since we kissed,” he began, hoping that the delicate flush he saw rising in Mercutio's cheeks was a good sign, “I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. About what it would be like to do it again. So I guess I wanted to know if you'd ever want to try dating for real?”

There was a moment where time seemed to slow as Mercutio just stared at him. He swore he could hear his heart stop as he waited. It was out there now. No turning back.

Just as he was about to crawl out of his skin with anticipation, Mercutio spoke up in an uncharacteristically small voice, “What about Juliet?”

Puzzled, Romeo asked, “What about her?”

“I may not like her, but she's a good kid. I don't want to hurt her by stealing her boyfriend.”

“Benvolio didn't tell you? We broke up about a week ago. It was mutual.”

“Well,” Mercutio said slyly, getting to his feet and crossing to stand between Romeo's thighs. “In that case, I really would like to kiss you again. If that's okay with you?”

“That is more than okay,” Romeo choked out, winding his arms around Mercutio's neck.

Romeo didn't know which one of them leaned in to close the gap between them, but suddenly they were kissing. Mercutio's lips were firm against his and his fingertips warm as he stroked the underside of his jaw. It was the kind of kiss that made your knees go weak, and Romeo was glad he was already sitting down. They continued their embrace until it became clear that Romeo was smiling too wide to continue. Mercutio pulled back to lean his forehead against Romeo's with a mirroring grin, and he knew this was it.

FIN.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Paris. I feel bad for being so mean to him. He's not that bad a guy. I played him in a production once upon a time.
> 
> If you wanted to know what some of the other characters are doing in this universe:  
> @ Mr. Lawrence - school counselor  
> @ Dr. Oberon and Dr. Titiana - Principles of the High School and Middle School respectively; currently arguing about whether a student can skip 8th grade.  
> @ "John" Banquot - plays football (receiver) and is Mac's best friend; there is currently tension between them for getting college scouts' attention  
> @ Richard Plantagenet - MRA who is trying to woo Anne Neville by tipping his fedora every time he sees her  
> @ Mr. B - the theater theacher
> 
> That's about it. Hope you enjoyed!


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